Roar...
Roar...
The Gedo Statue's bellow exploded across the heavens and earth.
It was more than mere sound.
It was a deeper, more primal vibration, like the earth itself was wailing and the sky was weeping.
Wherever the sound waves passed, glass shattered, walls collapsed, and cracks split the ground.
Everyone still standing felt stabbing pain tear through their eardrums.
Some dropped straight to their knees and clamped both hands over their ears.
Everyone was stunned.
Kakashi's lone eye widened as his body instinctively stumbled backward.
The fear rising from the depths of his soul left him completely rigid, like a frog caught in a snake's gaze.
At some point, the toothpick had fallen from Darui's mouth.
His lips trembled faintly.
Lightning Release chakra flickered around his fingertips, but he could not gather enough focus to form a complete jutsu.
Yugito gritted her teeth.
Inside her, Matatabi was roaring frantically.
The Two-Tails wanted to break free, flee, and put as much distance as possible between itself and that horrifying existence.
Akatsuchi had collapsed onto the ground.
He did not even have the strength to stand.
None of them had ever seen a monster so enormous.
Nor did any of them know what it was.
The Gedo Statue.
The husk of the Ten-Tails.
The ultimate weapon summoned through the Rinnegan.
It was so immense that Amegakure's towering buildings barely reached its knees.
It was so powerful that every breath it took summoned raging winds.
Every step it took triggered an earthquake.
It was so terrifying that only one thought remained in everyone's mind.
Run!
Run now!
Get as far away as possible!
A trickle of blood spilled from the corner of Nagato's mouth.
His face was as pale as paper.
Yet a maddened flame burned within his Rinnegan.
His entire body trembled violently.
The decrepit mechanical apparatus beneath him groaned under the strain, while the tubes constricted around his emaciated body like snakes.
Nagato seemed completely unaware of the pain.
"Feel pain. Contemplate pain. Accept pain. Know pain."
His hoarse, frenzied voice echoed through the rain.
It drowned out the thunder, the wind, and even the Gedo Statue's roars.
"Those who do not understand pain can never understand true peace."
He spread his arms as though embracing the entire world.
"From this moment onward, the world shall know pain..."
"Pfft..."
Teizawa nearly coughed up blood.
That speech, this scene, that declaration so melodramatic it bordered on insanity...
In his previous life, he had heard it so many times in Naruto clips online that it had made him sick.
Every time he heard it, the sheer embarrassment made his toes curl.
He had wanted to smash the screen just to make it stop.
Now this lunatic was performing it live, right in front of him.
The secondhand embarrassment was a hundred times worse than he had imagined.
"Nagato!"
Teizawa's shout thundered across the battlefield.
"Aren't you afraid of destroying all of Amegakure?"
He pointed at the Hidden Rain shinobi and civilians who had not yet managed to evacuate.
Then he pointed at the buildings and streets being crushed beneath the Gedo Statue.
"This is your village! The place where you and Konan grew up! The place Yahiko dreamed of changing!"
Amegakure trembled.
The Gedo Statue's tendrils swept through the towering buildings, toppling them like children's blocks.
Rubble crashed to the ground as clouds of dust billowed into the air.
Screams, sobs, and furious curses blended together.
Nagato's voice remained cold.
"I need no reason to kill you."
He paused.
"As for Amegakure's people, it is their honor to sacrifice themselves for the great works of a god."
The corner of Teizawa's mouth twitched.
This bastard had completely lost his mind.
He was even willing to sacrifice his own people.
Teizawa took a deep breath.
Then he smiled.
There was something strangely unsettling about that smile.
"Well, well. You said it yourself."
His voice was soft, almost as though he were speaking to himself.
Yet every person present heard him clearly.
"Run! We need to retreat!"
Mei came rushing over from the distance.
Her face was pale, and several tears had been ripped through her blue dress by flying debris, exposing patches of fair skin smeared with dust and blood.
She seized Teizawa's arm and tried to drag him away.
"Kakashi and the others have already retreated. If we don't leave now, it'll be too late!"
Teizawa turned his head.
Sure enough, the shinobi from Konoha, Kumogakure, and Iwagakure were already nowhere to be seen.
Kakashi had been the fastest.
Lightning Release chakra surged beneath his feet, and in the blink of an eye, he had vanished into the distance.
Darui dragged Akatsuchi away while Yugito covered their retreat.
The three of them quickly disappeared among the ruins.
None of them were fools.
They knew a monster like this could not be defeated.
They also knew that staying behind meant certain death.
Teizawa remained where he was, completely motionless.
Mei froze, then tugged on his sleeve.
"Have you lost your mind? Hurry!"
Teizawa turned to look at her anxious face.
Suddenly, he smiled.
That smile seemed unusually bright within the pouring rain, like a ray of sunlight piercing through the storm clouds.
"Mei..." His voice was as gentle as a night breeze brushing past her ear. "Why haven't you run? Don't tell me you're worried about me."
Mei stared at him in surprise, and a faint blush appeared on her cheeks.
She shot him an irritated look.
"You still have time to joke about that? Hurry!"
She released his arm, turned, and sped away.
After only a few steps, however, she abruptly stopped.
She looked back.
Teizawa was still standing in the same place.
His dark-gold robe remained perfectly still in the rain.
Every raindrop that approached him was repelled by an invisible force.
He stood like a statue, a drawn sword, or an ancient tree rooted deep within the earth.
He had no intention of fleeing.
He had not even adopted a defensive stance.
"You're insane..."
Mei's voice rose to a near scream.
The markings of the Six Paths churned in the sky.
Sheets of paper swirled around Konan.
She looked at the Gedo Statue, then at Teizawa and Nagato. Her deep-orange eyes were filled with conflicting emotions.
"It's useless," she murmured, almost as though speaking to herself. "No one can survive against that monster."
Nagato said nothing.
He merely stared at Teizawa.
There was no emotion whatsoever within his Rinnegan.
His gaze was as indifferent as though he were already looking at a corpse.
The Gedo Statue raised one foot and brought it down toward Teizawa.
That foot was wider than an entire street.
Once it landed, it would crush the whole district into rubble.
Teizawa raised his head.
He looked at the colossal foot descending toward him and smiled.
Then he threw his head back and shouted toward the heavens.
"Deidara! It's time for your art to begin!"
Everyone froze.
They instinctively looked up.
Amid the rain, sunlight squeezed through a break in the storm clouds.
It spilled across the war-ravaged land.
Something was circling high overhead.
A white silhouette.
Larger than a bird and faster than a kite, it appeared and disappeared between the clouds.
(End of Chapter)
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